The cookery thread

[Chest Rockwell]

Yeah you'll be fine

[Bus Surfer]

Cheers for the speedy response. I can start tea now. 

[Thunderplex]

Due to the shite weather, have done my first and sadly only BBQ of my 2 weeks off.  It's a good'un though.  Did a slab of massive ribs for 6 hours using the 321 method, a small brisket for 6 hours (3 wrapped), a lamb shoulder fillit for 3 hours and. Chicken for 3 hours.  Best I've ever done.  Everything smokey and juicy.  Got a chunk of pork in there still, think that's going to take about 14 hours, so there's supper sorted!

[Gus Mears]

Had a few needed days off work last week and have been riffing with a few established vegetarian dishes.

Made a mushroom wellington last week (didn't make the pastry, though I did intersperse it with thyme). Make some caramelised onions with a fair wack of garlic in, cooked Portebello mushrooms in red wine, butter, rosemary and thyme with a lot of pepper. Finally, wilted some spinach in sage. Brushed the pastry with mustard and layered the mushrooms, onions and then packaged with the spinach, before sprinkling the top with Stilton and wrapping over with pastry.

Didn't do the pastry too well, as the top exploded a bit, but tasted wonderful. Will probably do one for myself at Christmas while everyone else has the Turkey.

A lot less fancy, but managed to make a delicious chickpea curry yesterday that all told cost about 80p. Pretty much just using stuff I had lying about as I could not be bothered to shop. Chopped a couple of brown onions, threw in three cloves of garlic into olive oil until browned, added the chickpeas, then added a load of home made Ras al-Hanout and then hot chilli powder, salt and a bit of pepper. Then added a few squeezes of tomato paste. Towards the end, squeezed in the juice of a whole lemon and sprinkled with corriander. Absolutely loved it. 

 

[mim731]

Looks great Gus! 

How do you feel about halloumi? We did a mushroom and halloumi wellington for a few friends earlier this year, was an absolute belter of a dish in the end. Used the BBC Good Food recipe for it, but adapted it a bit. 

[Chest Rockwell]

I like the sound of adding the halloumi. The texture and heaviness of it would go really nicely in that kind of fish I think. Gus's version looks really good though too.

 

Whilst I am here - I made some butter the other day, just because I'd never done it before and I didn't know how easy it was. So I've got the buttermilk left over - what's a good thing to do with it? I know a lot of people use it for sweet dishes / baking, but is it good for anything savory?

[Dead Mike]

1 minute ago, Chest Rockwell said:

I like the sound of adding the halloumi. The texture and heaviness of it would go really nicely in that kind of fish I think. Gus's version looks really good though too.

 

Whilst I am here - I made some butter the other day, just because I'd never done it before and I didn't know how easy it was. So I've got the buttermilk left over - what's a good thing to do with it? I know a lot of people use it for sweet dishes / baking, but is it good for anything savory?

Buttermilk fried chicken? Not the most adventurous dish but it's fried chicken, what's not to like?

[Gus Mears]

I do like Halloumi a lot as it goes and would potentially try that out, though for Crimbo, think I will definitely go with blue cheese again as it will compliment better with the veg I do during the festive season. Halloumi skewers on the BBQ is one of my favourite things in the world and I'll definitely be attempting one more BBQ this summer, basically so I can eat them.

I'd echo what Mike is saying above about the buttermilk. Remember it being delicious on chicken in the meat-eating days. 

Edited August 15, 2017 by Gus Mears

[mim731]

Yeah, you can't have a bbq without halloumi. Even as a meat eater it's always my favourite bit of any bbq. 

[Onyx2]

1 hour ago, Chest Rockwell said:

Whilst I am here - I made some butter the other day, just because I'd never done it before and I didn't know how easy it was. So I've got the buttermilk left over - what's a good thing to do with it? I know a lot of people use it for sweet dishes / baking, but is it good for anything savory?

Buttermilk is a great marinade for chicken as mentioned above. Flavour it with mustard and other tings before breading.

It's also good in baking as it respires like yeast, so it works well in scone and soda bread recipes.

[Nick Soapdish]

I Sous Vide Steak for the first time this week. I will never cook it another way again. 30 seconds on the BBQ and was stunning

[Onyx2]

1 hour ago, Nick Soapdish said:

I Sous Vide Steak for the first time this week. I will never cook it another way again. 30 seconds on the BBQ and was stunning

There is no better way. Perfect results every time. I'm having it tonight actually!

[Thunderplex]

As Onyx says, makes amazing, tender, juicy fried chicken, and use the rest to make buttermilk biscuits to have with it.  Just an awesome combo. 

[Chest Rockwell]

I would love to try this sous vide steak everyone keeps going on about. No way is make it myself though, as I'm trying to cut beef out of my diet mostly, so there's no point getting all the equipment.

[Onyx2]

11 minutes ago, Chest Rockwell said:

I would love to try this sous vide steak everyone keeps going on about. No way is make it myself though, as I'm trying to cut beef out of my diet mostly, so there's no point getting all the equipment.

Best carrots you'll ever eat too.